Roberts, 51, a former SAIC executive who almost entered the seminary and spent the past eight years on the Solana Beach City Council, could imagine it. So could Oliver, 55, a retired Air Force master sergeant.

“On the first day that we met, the thing that clicked about us was that I had just gotten out of a long-term relationship and I mentioned in passing how I had wanted to adopt a child,” Roberts said.

What mattered then to Roberts and Oliver wasn’t their sexuality. What mattered was that Roberts was an 11th-generation American and Oliver was a third-generation San Diegan. What mattered was starting another generation of family.

The couple held a commitment ceremony a month later and adopted their first child three years afterward, then their second four years later.

Roberts’ rise in politics began that year — in 2004, the same year that 4,000 gay and lesbian couples were married in San Francisco, challenging a state ban and courting history with grins on their faces.

Even now, though, Roberts introduces Oliver to others as his “partner” instead of his “husband” because people seem more comfortable with the first label.

“I never would want anybody to feel uncomfortable, and I think it’s just like anything that is different with people,” he said. “A lot of people meet me and they say, ‘You’re a Democrat?’ ... They meet me and they say, ‘You’re gay?’”

It’s not lost on Roberts that his ascension to county supervisor comes as the U.S. Supreme Court grapples with the same-sex-marriage debate. He was too busy with his campaign and family to follow the case’s developments all that much. But he knows he is on a cusp in more ways than one.